


what we give and what we lose

by The-Immortal-Moon (LunaKat)



Series: What We Are (FMA Angst Week 2018) [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, FMA Angst Week 2018, Missing Scene, Prompt Fic, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 10:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15483867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaKat/pseuds/The-Immortal-Moon
Summary: For FMA angst week 2018. Day 2: Failure.Gods above. Her arm. Shecut off her arm.





	what we give and what we lose

**Author's Note:**

> **Failure**  
>  (noun)  
> \--lack of success.  
> \--the omission of expected or required action.  
> \--the action or state of not functioning.

Blood pours hot and fresh and shockingly, terrifyingly red as she tears into her own flesh. Lanfan doesn’t scream, doesn’t cry out. The only way he knows what she’s doing is because he can _smell_ the copper stench of blood and _feel_ the wetness of it seeping into the fabric of his jacket.

“What are doing?!” Ling demands. He’s running, legs pumping, lungs aching, his nerves raw with fear and panic and everything he’s never felt in a lifetime of assassination attempts. She can’t do this, he _won’t let her_ —“Lanfan, _stop_ —”

Her breath comes out in thick, hot sobs. It’s the only way he knows she’s still alive and he would stop to check if he weren’t being pursued by monsters that could kill them both in an instant. Stopping is a death sentence, slowing is a death sentence, carrying her is probably a death sentence too but damn if he’s not going to drop her. She is not deadweight she’s not dammit all to hell.

“Young lord,” she gasps. There are tears in her voice and rich, visceral agony. What is she doing what is she doing what is she— He can feel her arm _slapping_ limply against his back, feeling far looser and floppier than it had a second ago. “Turn the corner here.”

“What—”

“ _Trust_ me.”

Dammit, dammit, dammit. Growling Xingese curses under his breath, he obeys. He finds himself in an alley of some sort, which smells foul and is overflowing with garbage. There’s a sewer grate nearby, from which a rather noxious odor arises to assault his senses. Close to a dumpster, a medium-sized dog, likely a stray, is gnawing feverishly at a bone that was probably once a leg of meat, fangs scraping desperately in an attempt to get at the marrow. It looks up as they approach, ears perked and nose twitching wildly as it takes in the scent of blood.

“Okay.” He’s panting, starting to run low on breath. “What’s—What’s the plan?”

Smack. Smack. Smack. Her palm keeps banging against the small of his back—which, wait, is _strange_ because it didn’t reach that far down before. “I need you to put me down.”

“That would mean—”

“Stopping, I know.” He can still feel her working the kunai, but he’s stopped fearing that her intent is to take her own life. A plan means she expects to survive, right? Right. “ _Please_ , young lord.”

It’s the “please” that gets him, ultimately. She rarely asks things of him, but when she does, it always with his best interest in mind. Gritting his teeth, he skids to a halt. Reluctantly, he allows her weight to slide off him, her body slumping forward.

Her arm slides loose from his back, and it lands behind him.

Bewildered, he whirls around. It sits there, blood gushing out from the place where it _should_ be connected to the rest of Lanfan’s body. The fingers twitch idly, far too pale, while the rest of the muscles have gone limp and paradoxically stiff, the way corpses do. He stands there, blinking at it, uncomprehending. How could it have come loose? Meanwhile, the dog shakes out its pale fur and pads over to the dismembered limb, giving a cautious sniff. Numb with a dawning horror, he can do nothing but watch as the dog begins licking at the hand, the fingers, as it would a bone or some other treat.

“Young lord.” He turns. Lanfan is there, clutching her shoulder, scarlet dribbling out from between her fingers. Her face is streaked with tears, lip bleeding from what appear to be teeth marks. Wide, dark eyes peer at him through a fog of agony. “Tie the arm to the dog. Bid it to run. The homunculus will follow it.”

“Lanfan.” Gods above. Her arm. She _cut off her arm_.

“I will retreat into the sewers,” she goes on, nudging the nearby grate with her foot. At her hip, the kunai from earlier is sheathed in her belt, but he can still see the blood dripping from it. “You will go on and capture a homunculus.”

Ling wants to _scream_ at the horror of it. While he was running, while he was carrying her and trying to get them both to safety (running like a coward), she was severing her own flesh, tearing through muscle and veins and tendons and sawing through her own bones. She must have been in unimaginable pain, and yet she did not make a sound. Why? Why would she do this? This is so much more than is asked of her in her oath of loyalty and devotion. Protect at all costs—but this is too much. Too much.

“I won’t leave you,” he chokes out instead.

A strangled sort of smile crosses her face, but it quickly turns into a grimace. The darkness of her clothing hides the color of blood but not the shine of wetness. He is grateful her hand is clutching the wound, because he can’t stand to see the jagged cut of her flesh. “I know, young lord. But you must. This way—this way I know you’ll come back for me.”

Hot, stinging nausea rises to his throat. He wants to spill his stomach contents all over the pavement.

But he is a prince, dammit. Twelfth son of the Emperor, proud successor of the Yao clan. He has his honor and he has his pride. And he has a mission to complete. That’s what she’s telling him—he can see it in the light of her eyes, the burning intensity as she tries to smother her own pain. For _his_ sake.

And while he is standing there, trying to grapple with what she’s just done, she has already removed the grate. “Good luck, young lord,” she says, and then vanishes into darkness.

Her remaining hand reaches out, grabs the grate, and slides it back into place with a clink.

There is no time to feel sorry for himself. He’s hesitated long enough, held back and it’s cost him. He whirls around to see the dog starting to gnaw on Lanfan’s hand.

He feels sick. But he can’t be. He’s on a mission and failure is not an option. The arm is floppy and unwieldy in his hands as he ties it to the dog’s back, and it is hard to wrap his head around the fact that this same hand once held his, once touched his shoulder or parried his sword while they sparred. Bewildered dark eyes peer up at him, the dog failing to understand the horror and gravitas of the situation.

With the grisly task (not as grisly as cutting off your own arm good _god_ ) accomplished, he takes the bone and throws it hard, far, far away. Yipping indignantly, the dog gives chase, oblivious to the blood trail it is leaving in it’s wake.

His jacket clings wetly to his back. Blood cooling, drying, hot and sticky. Ling breathes in deep and nearly chokes on the stench of it.

 _I cannot fail_ , he thinks. _I cannot waste the opportunity she has given me._

So he takes to the roofs, and tries to keep his mind clear. It’s the least he can do, all things considering.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written either of these two and I'm not sure how I did.


End file.
